CLASSICAL OPUS no.20

Johannes Brahms: “3rd Movement of the 3rd Symphony in F major”

ヨハネス・ブラームス：「第3回交響曲第3楽章主題歌」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 6 minutes

This soothing, somnambulant melodrama seems ruminating but is devoid of the era’s ubiquitous fatalism.  It contains one of the most addictive allegrettos, a deceptive ear-worm (“Ohrwurm”), as we say in German.  Its skeleton is essentially a vacillating valse and the French horns under Bernstein are dizzyingly engrossing.

In the second video, Jane Birkin bravely realizes the movement’s poppy potential.  It confirms that you can pull it off without a properly schooled voice (and in a foreign language).  Now, why dontcha try it yourself?

 

MUSIC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rU0IX-ubuik

 

 

INFO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._3_(Brahms)

 

A REFLECTION

Troubled, wildered, and forlorn,

Dark, benighted, travel-worn,

Over many a tangled spray,

All heart-broke, I heard her say:

‘O my children! do they cry,

Do they hear their father sigh?

Now they look abroad to see,

Now return and weep for me.’

 

William Blake: “A Dream”

Published in: on December 11, 2018 at 5:00 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.21

Edvard Grieg – “Peer Gynt suite 1 and 2 op.46”

エドヴァルド・グリーグ  「ペール・ギュント・ スイート1と2 op.46」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 33 minutes

This ‘Lord of the Rings’ avant la lettre, runs the gamut from deviant zombie dances to misty sleepiness.  The perfumed, emotive suites stem from incidental music to a theater performance, a half-forgotten genre which vanished as quickly as it emerged.  The second video sports only the totemic “Hall of the Mountain King”.

 

MUSIC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca1DU606JJI

 

 

INFO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_Gynt_(Grieg)

 

A REFLECTION

In summer dusk the valley lies

With far-flung shadow veil;

A cloud-sea laps the precipice

Before the evening gale.

 

Henrik Ibsen: “Mountain Life”

Published in: on December 10, 2018 at 5:37 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.22

Modest Mussorgsky: “Pictures at an Exhibition”

モデスト ムソルグスキー：「展覧会での絵」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 34 minutes

This palatial, raw, multifarious composition essentially forms a catchy song cycle of a vaguely folksy resonance.  It is unmistakably Russian but remains original in its self-styled collection of pastoral themes.  Kissin in the original version may awe, but the Ravelian orchestration of the piece (here recorded from Japanese TV) is highly recommended.   Note the wake-up clarion used to replace the right-hand intro in “Promenade”.

 

MUSIC

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syLm-9JyhuY

 

INFO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pictures_at_an_Exhibition

 

A REFLECTION

Because it is so very clear,

It takes longer to come to the realization.

If you know at once candlelight is fire,

The meal has long been cooked.

 

“The Gateless Gate” (koan)

Published in: on December 9, 2018 at 5:00 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.23

Gabriel Fauré: “La Sicilienne op.78”

ガブリエル・フォーレ：「シチリアオペラ78」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 4 minutes

This introspective and inconsolable lullaby adsorbs layer by layer as a carefully balanced, subliminal chamber piece.  The asymmetric dialogue places a crooning cello in piano’s collateral embrace.  The result is perennially subtle, creaky and slow, just as the means of transportation were in the composer’s era.

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilienne_(Faur%C3%A9)

 

A REFLECTION

Eyes, are you not aware,

When eager to admire

Her face so soft and fair,

You are as wax in fire,

As snow in sun? Unless you have a care

Certes you’ll melt away.

 

Ludovico Ariosto: “Madrigal 1”

Published in: on December 8, 2018 at 4:40 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.24

Toshiro Mayuzumi: “Nirvana Symphony”

黛敏郎 – 「ニルヴァーナ交響曲」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 37 minutes

These disquieting, razor-sharp and flamelike mantras roast uncomfortably in claustrophobic caverns. The composer exposes the vestiges of his country’s heterophonic tradition with precise interplay between the basic structure and simultaneous ornamentation.  For the brave only.

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

http://www.jerretanner.com/blogs/2015/6/1/toshiro-mayuzumi-1929-1997-nirvana-symphony

 

A REFLECTION

As autumn mountains

Tinged with scarlet were you, maiden,

A pliable bamboo,

Supply bending, lady,

Of what

Were you thinking?

 

Man’yoshu (by Kakinomoto no Hitomaro): Waka “mys ii: 217”

Published in: on December 7, 2018 at 5:57 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.25

Claude Debussy: “Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune”

クロード・ドビュッシー：「動物の午後への前奏曲」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 12 minutes

The poem is instinctively Homeric, spiced with transoceanic unfamiliarity with which we quickly develop sensual intimacy.  The impressionistic savior of tonality infused it with such a wealth of exotic, almost visual harmonies that, once rediscovered, it exerted profound influence on 20th century’s film music.  Here, the Aegean perspectives are deployed by none other than Leonard Bernstein.  Note the suave flute treatment throughout.

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pr%C3%A9lude_%C3%A0_l%27apr%C3%A8s-midi_d%27un_faune

 

A REFLECTION

These nymphs I would perpetuate.

So clear

Their light carnation, that it floats in the air

Heavy with tufted slumbers.

Was it a dream I loved?

My doubt, a heap of ancient night, is finishing

In many a subtle branch, which, left the true

Wood itself, proves, alas! that all alone I gave

Myself for triumph the ideal sin of roses.

Stephane Mallarmé: “The Afternoon of a Faun”

Published in: on December 6, 2018 at 4:53 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.26

Franz Liszt: “Hungarian Rhapsody No.2”

フランツリスト：「ハンガリー狂詩曲第2番」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 8 minutes

The short duration ensures that this quintessential romantic form remains enigmatic in its quasi-patriotic delirium.  Worse, it sounds almost contrarian in its multiform pithiness.  Despite the ubiquity of virtuoso fireworks, the middle section seems to leave quite a lot of freedom for imaginative, oxygenated phrasing.

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Rhapsody_No._2

 

A REFLECTION

With frost fall upon my bed,

The ice upon my pillow

Cannot melt away-I lack the strength to die-

Leaving unfulfilled

The vow I made to you.

 

Fujiwara no Teika: “Love in Winter”

Published in: on December 5, 2018 at 5:08 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.27

Franz Schubert: “Serenade”

フランツ・シューベルト：「セレナーデ」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 3 minutes

Sentimental, piercing, even shrill but never discordant in the highest of registers, this poignant lament recurs obsessively.  The strongly suggestive, folkish simplicity that flows from the solo instrument obscures the deftly spinal piano accompaniment – a trademark of many of Schubert’s Lieder.  Here it is performed by I.Perlman – the great Yascha Haifetz’s virtuoso offspring.

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

https://www.musicwithease.com/schubert-serenade.html

 

A REFLECTION

So sweet the hour, so calm the time,

I feel it more than half a crime,

When Nature sleeps and stars are mute,

To mar the silence ev’n with lute.

 

Edgar Allan Poe: “Serenade”

Published in: on December 4, 2018 at 11:46 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.28

Camille Saint-Saëns: “Danse macabre”

カミーユサン=サーンス: 「死のダンス」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 7 minutes

A circular, robotic waltz grinds forward with unobtrusively hoarse, fine-grained violas juxtaposed against an ecstatically soaring theme.  It was transcribed by Liszt for piano, but the nightmarish tonal range of the orchestral version conjures up more potent, Draculean, lugubrious visions.

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/10/the-purest-halloween-music-ever-written/382119/

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danse_macabre_(Saint-Sa%C3%ABns)

 

A REFLECTION

I missed his funeral,

Those quiet walkers

And sideways talkers

Shoaling out of his lane

To the respectable

Purring of the hearse…

 

Seamus Heaney: “Casualty”

Published in: on December 3, 2018 at 4:02 pm  Leave a Comment  

CLASSICAL OPUS no.29

Fryderyk Chopin: “Nocturne, E flat major, op.9, no.2”

フレデリック・ショパン： 「夜行性、Eフラット・メジャー、オペラ9、2番」

 

TIME COMMITMENT: 5 minutes

Among the most eloquent, verbal miniatures that never fall into loquaciousness, these somnolent visions careen in vividly traceable childhood memories.  Cheerfully hesitant and vacillating, they were nearly stereotyped to death.  But the nocturnes have triumphed, retaining the power to grip and rip the lungs apart.

 

MUSIC

 

INFO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nocturnes_(Chopin)

 

A REFLECTION

Autumn is leaving

Tugging each others’ branches

Two pine trees

 

Masaoka Shiki: “Autumn is Leaving”

Published in: on December 2, 2018 at 4:48 pm  Leave a Comment  
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »